Deputy Dan's Cheltenham Festival target undecided

Oliver Sherwood will leave a decision over Deputy Dan's Cheltenham Festival target until much nearer the time.

The promising six-year-old was an impressive winner of a Grade Two event at Warwick recently but came back with a cut.

Thankfully, that has now cleared up and he has just started back in exercise. He will head straight to Cheltenham without another run.

"Deputy Dan has just had his first canter back this morning," said Sherwood. "He had 10 quiet days after the Warwick race when he picked up a cut, but he's perfectly fine now.

"It will be straight to Cheltenham now. Whether he picked up a cut or not, that was always going to be the plan. I said so straight after the Warwick race as he'd had two quick runs at Chepstow and in the Leamington (at Warwick).

"Of course we'd never have known what would have happened if Rathvinden had stood up at Warwick, but it was nice to see him run well at Cheltenham on Saturday.

"We've put him in the Neptune and Albert Bartlett but we won't decide until much closer to the day."

Deputy Dan is as big as 20/1 for the Neptune Investment Management Novices' Hurdle and as low as 12/1 for the Albert Bartlett.